Directory merge

Hi Paul

After several days of trying to understand the sticky note at https://windowssecrets.com/forums/sho...merge-Tutorial, forgive me for my attempt to slef educate, but I cant see how you achieved the merge records [by catagory] on page 3 and 4 to achieve the combined representatives by state/office.

Grasping this as a new user to coding word, man, difficult, not to mention the '[' brakets that are used, - are they just to highlight the field codes in the tutorial or inserted to complete a function?

When I attempt to assemble the document using the tables and document dowloaded from the sticky, I get repeated individuals one page at a time, not grouped as in the example.

What am I missing here I have followed all of the steps as documented and im boing bals here

Did you read the 'Viewing The Fields' topic? That explains both why the square brackets are used and how to view the fields they encompass. As for one page per record, that suggests you haven't followed the instructions for grouping the records and/or you're using a letter merge instead of a directory/catalogue merge.

PS: Please don't hijack the ongoing discussions in other threads. Even if you have a related issue, start your own thread. I've now split your post off into a new thread.

It would appear I cant work out the nestling {} above. Is there a rule of thumb or way to make this task simpler. For the life of me I cant get the same number of {} as shown in any of the examples when trying to recreate the code? What may I be doing wrong

Neither of your field code examples comes from the tutorial and I'm not in a position to do a detailed evaluation. That said, Word's field coding, as with any programming language, has its own syntax which, if violated, won't produce the desired results. In the various tutorials I've produced, I've tended to reduce the number of spaces and other characters used in the code to the bare minimum. Typically, therefore, one can't have any fewer spaces & quotes than I use.

Whether one has double-quotes around a number is of no consequence - but it would matter if one were evaluating a string with spaces. This code:
{ IF { MERGESEQ } = "1" "{ MERGEFIELD CITY }¶
" "" }
is functionally equivalent to:
{IF{MERGESEQ}= 1 "{ MERGEFIELD CITY }¶
"}
you'll note that the only quotes of importance are those delimiting the output - which includes a paragraph break not included in the mergefield.

If you're trying to use the field codes from the tutorial, I'd recommend simply copying & pasting the appropriate set from there into your own document, then modifying the mergefield names to suit your requirements. You can also modify the associated text and paragraph formatting. That way, you obviate the need to ensure you're doing all the nesting correctly. I should also point out that, no-one else has ever published directory/catalogue mailmerge field coding with anywhere near the sophistication of what you'll find in the tutorial.